The Republican base still has not united behind Donald Trump.

This explains why he’s polling at or below 40 percent in the majority of surveys taken, both nationally and in battleground states, over the past three weeks. That’s a sharp drop-off from late July, when, immediately following a week of solidarity-themed speeches at the GOP convention, Trump registered in the mid-forties in a chorus of surveys and was neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton.

Forget about wooing independents or pilfering Democrats. If Trump is to get back on track and regain a competitive stance against Clinton, he must first solidify his standing among rank-and-file Republican voters, as party chairman Reince Priebus acknowledged on “Face the Nation” yesterday. “That is the easiest piece for us to take care of,” he said. “Once the Republican base gets back up to where it was after the convention, those polls in Ohio and North Carolina and New Hampshire are going to be right back where we need them to be.”